韩国的“坏女人”维权和更多：分析CL在2018平昌冬奥会闭幕式的表演

may 18 2018, 从讨论kpop偶像cl在平昌冬奥会闭幕式上的表演的一些性别含义和政治所属 拓展到kpop文化的性别体现 其适当性与不适当性 musi2015 popular music 的 final paper 妈的要写3500-4000字干货 老子要写死了 学会了每天bullshit一千二百字+的技能

Korea’s “Bad Female” Empowerment and Beyond: An Analysis of CL’s 2018 PyeongChang Olympics Closing Ceremony Performance

The 2010s is a significant period for the Korean Wave, specifically, for K-pop music. Since Psy’s “Gangnam Style” (2012) as a milestone in the history of the Korean Wave launched K-pop’s official voyage to the mainstream of global music market, K-pop nowadays as we know it is more than just a sensational cultural phenomenon, but a medium of soft power through which the government promotes its national image and delivers social values and ideologies that have enduring impacts. Emerged in the late 1990s as a dominant branch of the Korean Wave next to K-dramas, K-pop music has gone through several transformations over a span of two decades, in terms of improved production qualities, integrationof influences from other cultures, genre diversification, and rearranged formats and aesthetic features (Jung 76-80).

The 27-year-old singer CL is a former member of 2NE1, one of the most successful Fourth Wave (late 2000s to present, indicated by Jung) groups that have densely practiced the essence of the transformation. The four-girl group was formed in 2009, with their music style bearing a distinctive fusion of electronic dance music, R&B and hip-hop. The aesthetics they adopt in their music expands to a larger scale that incorporates fashion, beauty, choreography, a unique fan culture, and members’ on-stage as well as real-life image. Their public image is known to be bold, edgy, rebellious with an “in-your-face swagger” (Greenburg) which to a certain extent challenges the so-called gender “norms” in the Asian cultural context. After 2NE1 disbanded in 2017, not only has CL preserved many qualities originated from the group in pursuing her own music career, she has also been able to step out of the local market to embrace various possibilities in exploring sexuality, identity and cultural values. It is these features that have led her to her popularity both in the Asian and the US markets, and to proudly representing Korea, or precisely, the reinvented Korean femininity, on a global stage at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics Closing Ceremony. By examining various aspects of CL’s 5-minute performance comprising two feminism-driven songs, “The Baddest Female” and “I Am the Best” in comparison withthe common practices circulated within and beyond K-pop music scenes, this paper aims to delve into the redefined femininity that Korea intends to present and promote to the world and the associated concerns.

How bad is the “baddest female”?

The performance begins with a prologue with CLstanding in the center of the arena in an all-black outfit that matches her intimidating on-stage presence. It is not difficult to tell that her costume, hairstyle, as well as the staging and lighting evoke many live performances of Beyoncé (see Figure 1, 2, 3 in Appendix). In a perfect American accent accompanied with body movements convincing an impression of toughness and bossiness, she calls out —

“This is for all my bad girls around the world – not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good, you know? Let’s light it up and let it burn like we don’t care. Let them know how it feels damn good to be bad! 2018, Korea, let’s go! … Where all my bad girls at?” (“CL Full Live Performance at the PyeongChang 2018 Closing Ceremony | Music Monday”)

Subsequent to the intense opening, the remastered version of the original “The Baddest Female” kicks in with the catchy hook “oh unni hey hey” (“unni” in Korean means “elder sister” connoting a dominative female who outcompetes other younger women who must show full respect to the former), a boosted hip hop bass beat, and re-choreographed dance moves which once again seem to pay tribute to the choreography in Beyoncé’s “Formation” (2016) (see Figure 4, 5 in Appendix).Another noticeable feature is the performer’s frequent interaction with the camera throughout. A standard live K-pop performance tends to require a substantial amount of camera movements that accurately follow the performers’ motion and the music’s progression. Naturally, this characteristic is adopted on CL’s stage, where she walks towards the backward dollying camera, intensely stares into the camera, flips the camera to the side while transitioning to another song, and so on (see Figure 6 in Appendix). Combined with the eye-catching visual effects and a big group of dancers in synchronized moves that gives rise to a sense of powerful uniformity, the performance is much like every other K-pop concert except that every detail is enlarged and exaggerated in order to fit into the “bigger” stage; by “big” I mean not just in size, but also significance-wise.

CL reveals in her interview with Billboardthat she particularly chose the two songs to perform because “The Baddest Female” as her solo debut song in 2013 “represents” her and “I Am the Best” is an easily sing-along song which everyone is familiar with (Herman). To be plainly honest, both titles are so straightforward that they do not embody any poetical or artistic significations. The lyrical pattern tends to embrace the same quality that it explicitly presents a female persona who is confident, independent, bold, aggressive and somewhat obnoxious. These attributes combined amount to a concrete outline of a feminine portrayal that deviates much from the traditional notions of femininity in the Asian society; in other words, a female like this could be considered so-called “bad” with regards to Asian conventions. Yet CL specifically asserts in her lyrics that the “bad” in this context actually means good rather than bad. It is apparent here that the choice of songs, like the previous 2NE1 productions, also manifests an “in-your-face” attitude in a sense that it openly and fearlessly challenges the long-practiced cultural conventions by breaking out of the social gender norms and experimenting possibilities of sexuality.

In this regard, what exactly is the “badness” in CL’s depiction that Korea urges to promote in front of the international audience? Despite the fact that CL’s on-stage image is known to be rebellious and aggressive, in real life she is a well-behaved celebrity that has made promising achievements in many fields. A few years ago, there was a lot of tough times when she and her team struggled to reach out to the mainstream of the US music industry, according to Fader(Myers). It was her perseverance and countless hard work that enabled her to formulate a set of aesthetic qualities that exclusively belongs to herself, which eventually led her to the current fame and popularity, and to her astonishing Olympics appearance. Compared to her former colleague in 2NE1, Park Bom, whose public image has been severely shadowed by her controversial association with a drug smuggling incident in 2014 (Hicap), CL’s social reputation as a hardworking and independent female figure is what the country considers to have positive influence on the public. Thus it is justifiable that the self-proclaimed “baddest female” should take pride in herself for remaining glowing and respectable after all the hardship.

The release of “The Baddest Female” in 2013 was significant for CL, not only because it was her first solo song, but also the message embedded in the song was something she had been wanting to spread for a long time. She expressesto Billboardher urge to empower Asian women by letting the world know “there are girls in Asia, like [her], who like hip hop and dress uniquely” and with this information in mind, women can feel more confident about themselves in defiance of gender and racial stereotypes (Oak and Young). This notion is also carried out in her Olympics performance, specifically embodied in the opening call where she directly addresses to all her “bad girls around the world” and invites the world to know “how it feels damn good to be bad”. Moreover, attached to the unique “badness” is an additional touch upon Western gender values that makes reference to well-known feminist musicians like Beyoncé. The fusion of the East and the West proves adequate to the representation of Korean femininity which redefines itself over time in an international arena.

Enunciation of the redefined femininity

The feminine image demonstrated by CL’s performance is not of pure Asian-ness, as identified in the previous paragraphs, but of something heavily infused with Western, or specially, American influences. It challenges a series of conservativegender values which emphasize on female’s intrinsic qualitiesrather than external outputs, inferiority to male in the society rather than gender equality, elegance and reserved-ness instead of outgoing expressions. An equality-oriented impression is conveyed throughout CL’s solo projects including “The Baddest Female” (2013), “Hello Bitches” (2015) and “Lifted” (2016) which advocates the idea that there is nothing wrong with women doing whatever the society nowadays considers acceptable or “cool” for men to do, such as swearing vigorously and engaging in violent activities, overtly talking about sex and even illegal deeds, and displaying erotic spectacles. Exhibiting the provocative dimension might be inappropriate to an Olympics arena which necessarily bears the weight of national, political, social and cultural significations. Nevertheless, Korea has made the most out of CL’s performance in voicing a feminist ideal in authority’s eyes. I will discuss the issues and concerns lying behind this advocation in the later section of the paper.

In terms of the appearance on the outer surface, this feminist portrait definitely encompasses an overwhelming sense of toughness. The condensed choreography demands a great deal of strength and energy, and at the same time CL has to remain a somewhat playful yet intimidating and superior diva-look. Normally, the diva personalities in K-pop differ from the America’s absolute divas like Madonna and Beyoncé in a way that the Korean ones only display such looks during the performance. As soon as the performance is over, complying with the strict manners in Korean culture, they would usually bow or show some formal gestures of appreciation to the audience. K-pop celebrities’ politeness and humble attitude have gained appeal to the universal audience and is a major signature of K-pop culture (Kim 14). However, it is worth noticing that in this performance the camera does not capture any of CL’s behaviors that might indicate signs of “K-pop politeness”, other than blowing a kiss at the very end which is more or less a “Western” gesture. This can be suggestive of a shift in CL’s own celebrity image, considering the aesthetics and musical elements in her most recent projects, “Hello Bitches” and “Lifted”, appear to be much more visually evocative and culturally inclusive, compared to the earlier “The Baddest Female”, the music video of which still contained traces of cuteness and other common practices of K-pop such as the bizarre settings and jerky cinematography style (see Figure 7, 8 in Appendix). Apparently the government does not see CL’s experimental transition into vulgarity in the way of presenting her to a larger audience, but instead regards her metamorphosis as an integration of the Western influence and K-pop’s originality. Whether this embodiment has been properly defined remains ambiguous and needs to be further examined.

Speaking of femininity and female representation, a notion needs to be acknowledged which is the male gaze. The concept is widely applied and examined in film studies in relation to the Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis and the post-structural ideologies. The mainstream media tends to portray women to fit into certain stereotypes that objectify the male gaze; these include but are not limited to showing women’s erotic spectacles, submission to men, and unequal treatments of genders within the patriarchal order. This notion is also commonly exercised in Asian media industry like K-pop and J-pop, provided the impression of Asian women is oftentimes associated with stereotypes generated from colonialism and Orientalism, as well as Freud’s psychoanalysis theories. While the majority of K-pop girl idols are characterized by visible cuteness and sexiness (see Figure 9, 10 in Appendix), CL is a rare case who does not necessarily conform to the “rules” in the industry but still has a concrete fan base comprised of both biological genders. She is not used to exploiting her sexuality as a primary source of attraction in her career; when the gender-specific popularity of most of the girl idols is referred to the male gazing pleasure and male’s sexual fantasy, CL is an exception. What Korea wants to promote to the globe is a kind of femininity that emancipates from the social patriarchy, that fundamentally rejects the male gaze and enunciates feminine specificities transcending the symbolic order. This is most likely why CL was chosen to represent Korean females rather than Girls’ Generation, for example, despite having a more influential impact among the mainstream audience as a 11-year-old girl group, whose popularity relies largely on female spectacles and the male gaze (see Figure 11 in Appendix).

Additionally, CL’s performance reflects K-pop’s adaptation of the increasing awareness of gender and sexuality equality in recent years. Drawing upon inspiration from gender activism movements in the US, the K-pop music scenes today to a certain extent manifest characteristics of queerness, sexuality diversity, female empowerment and such. CL’s music shows much appreciation to powerful female figures in American music industry such as “Queen Bee” Lil’ Kim and Lauryn Hill (TFL; “73 Questions With CL | Vogue). There are many other artists making their appearance in K-pop who embody the aforementioned aspects; for instance, Amber from girl band f(x) who breaks the Asian gender norms bearing tomboy features (see Figure 12 in Appendix) is popular among female audiences both in and outside of Korea. This hybridity of diversity regarding gender and sexuality provides sufficient evidence of K-pop’s raised awareness of integrating extrinsic cultural values as well as embracing culture differences in order to reconfigure and refine its transformation from local to global.

(In)Authentic (mis)representation? – a critical evaluation

Although CL’s dazzling performance at the Olympics provides a unique eye-opening experience for many audiences, local audiences react to her stunning stage presence with a mixed reception. Most of the criticisms speak of the inappropriateness of the overall performance to the performing context, a misrepresentation of Korean and of Asian femininity, and the extent of CL’s insolent individualism of wanting to express and represent herself on the Olympics stage (“CL explains she chose ‘The Baddest Female’ for the closing ceremony as an expression of her image”). These criticisms are inevitably reasonable considering K-pop’s sheer musical values compared to the cultures of otherness such as the African American music genres which are backed up by abundant historical and social significance.

The authenticity and essentiality of K-pop culture is frequently interrogated by not only the international audience but the local culture critics as well. K-pop culture nowadays needs to be reviewed in relation to the “fast food” economic system it is situated in. When referring to K-pop music, we are not merely talking about the music but a tangible phenomenon normally packaged with an extensive amount of embellishments including visual complements, the rigorous training system behind the stars, the highly participatory fan culture, and political influences and economic developments that tag along. Over the practice of two decades, these aspects have gradually evolved into the essence of K-pop’s consumability with the musical aspect oftentimes being set aside. The consumers within the system are usually younger generations who greatly enjoy the convenience of this “fast food” fashion as to the accessibility, the trendiness or namely the “coolness” of the culture. As much as it is infused with ample decorative elements, the music is grounded in superficiality in a sense that it lacks originality, meaningfulness, and long-lasting social and cultural impacts.

Examining CL’s performance with this notion in mind, the music adopts a typical YG production style (YG Entertainment is the company to which CL is signed). The rearranged “The Baddest Female” is a fusion of hip hop and electronic music along with CL’s fierce rapping to the loud trap beats and chromatically descending “C-B-B♭-A” motif in the background. The second song, “I Am the Best” originally performed by 2NE1, is also a hip hop-electronic fusion of which the heavily synthesized motif introduces a great sense of distortion. The two pieces all together embody a dark tonality, through the use of minor or chromatic scales, and the provocative and arrogant rap lyrics like “someone like you can’t ever handle me”, “I am the proudest, I never say sorry”, “my smile is killa because it makes everyone die”, “guys are turning around to look at me, girls are following me”, and such (Genius;MetroLyrics). A song with lyrics like these to be presented on a global stage undoubtedly makes the public question its appropriateness to the event and to the associated significance. It is even more doubtful whether the femininity is properly and genuinely portrayed but rather is some sort of vulgarity and near-insanity. A case for comparison would be supermodel Gisele Bündchen’s catwalk at the 2016 Rio Olympics Opening Ceremony. The femininity ideal conveyed through her 2-minute walk is an illustration of an empowered female being properly enunciated, compared to which CL’s performance is unavoidably mocked and criticized for misrepresentation that appears to be artificial and insincere.

Moreover, although the performance is seen to combine elements from the East and the West, there is not much East-ness reserved but mainly an embodiment of the superficial imitation of the West. Here another concern is brought into the discussion regarding the authenticity of the representation. As a cultural product that primarily originated from an Asian context, to this day K-pop has developed into an entity that imports influence from other cultures and eventually exports its artifacts back to other cultures. Identified by Kim in the Introduction of the book, The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global, the initiation of the Korean pop culture was originally a response, a “counterweight” to the seeming invasion of the Western culture such that the Asian communities used the reinvented culture formations to challenge and to rebel against the stereotypical images the Westerners project onto the so-called Oriental (15). Neverthelss, conception of challenging a cultural otherness is to bring out the different dimensions of the internal distinctive qualities between one’s own culture and the other’s. In this regard, neither does K-pop reflect traditional Korean cultural values, nor does it incorporate any original elements into the music or the performance per se. Yet, the Korean artists urge to break into the American market including earlier cases of Rain and BoA, and more recent ones like CL and BTS, with the concern lying in their exploration within the US market being precisely, how they can possibly challenge the other culture using what they have acquired from that other culture. In other words, the dimensions they offer in their work lack the authentic representation of their own culture but contain merely the simulation of others. Therefore, the K-pop culture in essence is a void entity.

Conclusion

This paper provides an all-round examination of CL’s performance at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics Closing Ceremony regarding the enunciated femininity that breaks the Asian gender norms. Expanding this notion to the larger context of K-pop culture, the authenticity behind the represented Korean femininity is greatly interrogated with respect to the inappropriate portrayal of “bad females” and the essentially empty core of the Korean pop culture, with its self-conscious insecurity reflected in CL’s performance.

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